Awakening Into A Nightmare
by drakensis
Summary: Janos Marik wakes from an extended coma, finding that the Inner Sphere has changed almost beyond recognition... (AU)


**Awakening into a Nightmare**

**Steinhof, Vienna**

**Terra**

**9 July 3025**

The first thing Janos Marik saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.

It took him a few moments to realise it was a hospital bed. There were tubes piercing his flesh and he had to fight off a panic as he realised that there were more up his nostrils and down his throat.

There was an electronic bleeping, raised voices and everything seemed to fade.

He thought could hear Therese's voice but he must be imagining it. He hadn't seen her in so long...

.o0o.

**Steinhof, Vienna**

**Terra**

**13 July 3025**

When he woke again Janos forced down a wave of panic. This must be a hospital so the pipes were probably keeping him alive. That was a good thing.

The important step now was to stay awake long enough that someone could talk to him. Once he knew what was going on, he could prepare himself to resume office.

Hopefully Thomas hadn't done too bad a job in charge.

Only a few seconds later an unfamiliar man looked him in the eye. "Sir, are you in pain. One blink for yes, two for no."

He felt stiff. Weak. And... fuzzier around the edges than he should be. But not in pain.

Janos blinked once and then a second time.

To his surprise he felt fingers close around his. Slim, feminine fingers. Bronwen?

"Okay, we're going to elevate your head and shoulders a little, sir," the man - a doctor, most likely - offered. "If you feel any discomfort, please squeeze your daughter's hand."

Daughter? Memory came back to Janos of waking before. Therese? Why was she here?

There was a dull ache as the bed was adjusted and he could look around. The view out of the room's window wasn't anything he recognised but it was Therese alright, sitting by the bed. She looked older than he remembered - not just from when he last saw her in person but also from the photographs that had reached him via the media.

"Don't try to talk," the doctor warned. "We'll see about removing the breathing apparatus but we need to check your condition first."

Janos wasn't sure nodding was a good idea (he had the distinct impression that there might be medication stopping his headache from exploding didn't want to make the inevitable result of that wearing off any worse) so he blinked once and then looked over at Therese questioningly.

She met his gaze for a moment and then dropped her eyes. "It's a long story. You've been in a coma for four years."

Four years?

He could feel his heart pounding and then there was a numbness that muted everything else.

"I've given you a sedative," the doctor announced. "Just relax, sir. You're stable but it'll be a little longer before you're ready to leave the bed."

Janos Marik wanted to roar in outrage, get up and demand to know what had been going on while he was apparently taking an extended nap...

...but instead his eyelids closed.

.o0o.

**Steinhof, Vienna**

**Terra**

**14 July 3025**

Therese wasn't there when Janos woke again. Nor were the tubes down his throat or up his nose so that was more or less a fair trade off. He tried speaking but all he could manage was a croak. Judging by the hour it was the middle of the night but he pushed the call button until a nurse brought him some water and helped him sip it.

"What's the date," he asked once his throat felt human again.

It really had been four years, or very nearly.

"And where am I?"

The woman (she was almost his own age with a refreshing look of competence although he'd have preferred a more ornamental girl to look at) smiled reassuringly. "The Steinhof, in Vienna," she told him.

Vienna?

"Austrian Vienna? On Terra?"

A nod.

"What the hell am I doing on Terra?"

"Cursing," she told him briskly. "Would you like a sedative?"

What Janos wanted was a command circuit back to Atreus and preferably a strong drink but at least for the next day or two he doubted either was forthcoming. "No," he said sharply and then added "Thank you." Being rude to the staff was pointless and demeaning to himself as much as them.

With nothing to do until it was day time, Janos dozed lightly. He didn't want to sleep - he'd done enough of that lately - but he had a feeling he'd need to be re-rested.

To his surprise, his first visitor wasn't Therese or even another of his family. Instead, two security men opened the door, gave the room a quiet and professional examination and then held the door for a man in the robe of a ComStar Precentor entered.

Not a Precentor, Janos realised with a jolt. The decorations of the robe marked the wearer as the Primus! Historically the holder of the office wore a different colour robe to mark them out further but these were the red worn by most of the order. Eyes narrowing, the Captain-General - no, after four years I must have been formally replaced - the Duke tried to place the man but couldn't put a name to the face.

"The peace of Blake be with you, Lord Marik." The Primus gave him a sympathetic look and then, uninvited, took a seat. "You're looking better than I expected."

Damned right I am. "I don't believe we've been introduced."

"Primus John Buchannan, of ComStar of course. I'm here to belatedly welcome you to Terra."

"Thank you for your hospitality. And your hospital. I'm sure you understand I'd prefer to recuperate at home though."

"Ah." Buchannan removed the archaic spectacles he wore, wiped the lenses casually on his sleeve and then replaced them on his nose. "That will be more complicated than you realise."

Janos' heart seemed to seize up. Of course it would be, he chastised himself. ComStar has a House Lord - or near enough one - in their power. They won't give that up. "I understand."

"No... I don't think you do. I regret that I am the one to tell you about this, but perhaps it is best from someone not close to you." The Primus paused, apparently considering his words carefully. "You and your daughter Therese are in exile, Lord Marik. You are, of course, completely free to return to your family estates in this region. Indeed, you may travel freely on Terra or anywhere else in this star system but beyond that my protection does not extend."

"What?" The question was plainative, weak. Janos cursed himself for it. "A little more detail please."

Buchannan steepled his fingers. "You cannot return to the Free Worlds League because there is no League to return to. Your policies were followed faithfully by your son Thomas and led directly to a civil war. Which he lost."

"Lost? How? Dammit, we had the Capellans tied to us, that would have given us peace on that front and an insurmountable political bloc in Parliament, not to mention the CCAF to support his loyal forces."

"Duchess Candace Liao was unable to marry Thomas," Buchannan explained drily. "Largely because she was busy trying to retain her own throne. Perhaps unfortunately, her sister - with backing from the Federated-Commonwealth - was able to oust her. In the meanwhile Oriente and Andurien were able to convincingly place themselves as independent powers and there was considerable fracturing of the League along the periphery border."

Janos scowled. "Humphreys I can believe, but Halas? They've always been loyal and the new Duchess was little more than a child. Who convinced her to turn on Thomas?"

The other man shrugged. "The exact circumstances are in some doubt, at least according to my analysts. Suffice to say that Duchess Misty Halas was assassinated and her successor was both fortunate enough and gifted enough to..." He eyed Janos carefully. "Well. To prevent the reunification of the League."

"Jesus Christ."

Janos' eyes stared past Buchannan, out of the window. He wasn't seeing the buildings of Vienna though. He was seeing the ancient home of House Marik, upon the world that bore their name and upon Atreus.

Lost now. Not only to him personally, a risk he had reconciled himself seven - no, eleven years ago now, he corrected himself. Lost to his entire family.

.o0o.

**Steinhof, Vienna**

**Terra**

**15 July 3025**

Therese didn't visit him the same day as the Primus. She might have tried, the doctors had kept Janos busy with dozens of asinine tests, almost too busy to think about what he had been told.

Almost.

While they had been more interested in his own health - and in any event they weren't particularly aware of off-world politics. He'd learned that Hanse Davion, Katrina Steiner, Percival Calderon and Eris Centralla were still on their thrones and probably Elias Avellar was still President of the Outworlds Alliance unless he had a close kinsman called Ellis.

Romano Liao ruled the Capellan Confederation, a female Kurita sat on the Coordinator's throne and Jack Carver - Janos ground his teeth at the memory of the insolent mercenary - ruled the Marian Hegemony. Which unless he misunderstood matters, was one of several neighbours that had profited at the expense of the Free Worlds' weakness. The Canopians had been astoundingly militant in that regard apparently - with their record of medical excellence, they at least were known to the hospital staff.

When Therese arrived she took a seat and just looked at him.

He looked back. For half an hour neither said anything, waiting for the other to break the silence.

Janos broke first, realising as he did so, that Therese was no longer the compliant girl that had done everything (except for marry) as he had ordered her to. "Your family?"

Therese bowed her head. "The boys are safe at our estate to the south of Vienna. I had them with me."

"And your husband?"

"Jeremy was on Atreus when the Jaguars came. There were... few survivors."

"I... see." He considered condolences, recognised that they would be empty. He had never approved of Jeremy Brett. "And the rest of the family?"

Therese shook her head simply. "Some of the more distant cousins are keeping the name alive, but none are in positions of power," she told him.

"I see," Janos said again. What sin did I commit, he asked himself, that all my children - save Therese - would be taken away? Dear God, you have taken my brother and my wives. My children and my realm. What more can you do? "I am told that Thomas ruled during my... ill-health."

Therese stood and walked to the window. "While he lived," she told him with harsh honesty. Then: "Until SHE killed him."

"She?"

"Eleison." His daughter pressed her hands against the glass. "Her name is Kyrie Eleison. And truly God is with her. God or the Devil!"

"Eleison," Janos repeated. "I don't know the name."

"You wouldn't. She was a mercenary. Like Wolf, she came out of nowhere with a small army at her back. Today she calls herself 'Protector of Oriente' and her domain stretches from Tamarind to Ingersoll. Halas paid her but she never controlled her. The bitch sacked Sian, weakening Liao to the point she was useless as an ally and once she took over Oriente she went after Atreus."

"These Jaguars you mentioned? Her army?"

Therese shook her head. "No. They came later. She and Alfonso Orloff - they're married now - landed an army on Atreus, stormed the capital and they killed Thomas! She made a speech, right in the Parliament chamber, calling for the end of the League and we were so WEAK - I was so WEAK - I had to let them get away with it."

Janos lowered his head. Atreus had been safe, untouched by the wars of the Inner Sphere for centuries. His brows narrowed. "You were too weak? You specifically?"

His daughter turned back towards him and raised her chin. "I am the Captain-General of the Free Worlds League. There was no other adult Marik willing. I began to reconquer the provinces as they fell out with each other. And then..."

"Jaguars?"

"They called themselves the Smoke Jaguars. One of several groups that descend from Kerensky's army." She walked back to the seat and sank into it. "They fight like devils but if I understand the reports correctly, they encountered something even worse out in the Deep Periphery. Entire fleets of them returned to the Inner Sphere. Some of them took up with the states they arrived in. Eleison had some kind of arrangement with a group - she might even be one of them. The Jaguars though, they arrived with fire and steel, assaulting the heartlands of the League."

Janos wanted to stop her. Wanted to wake up from this. He could do neither. The words were spilling out of her like a torrent of water.

"We fought them. We fought them so very hard. And sometimes, just sometimes, we won. But they showed no mercy and we beat them only by being just as hard. And what we won was ruined worlds and thousands of millions dead."

"And it was for nothing because they just... they stopped. One man in just the right place with the damnedest luck beat their leaders and won their obedience. One day they were storming out of the sky and fighting their way into our cities and the next they packed up like whipped dogs to follow their new master."

Therese took a deep breath. "We were weak. No, we were shattered. Eleison crossed the border and there was nothing to stop her. Worlds just surrendered. Carver followed her - some kind of pact or just opportunity. It was only a matter of time until everyone else joined in."

"And you fled?" Janos managed to ask.

"No." She shook her head. "I was on Marik. I was captured but Tylor - the man who beat the Jaguars, his name is Justi Tylor - handed me over to ComStar. They threatened an interdiction to force a conference." Therese's voice almost broke. "I thought... I hoped... Thomas had been an acolyte. I thought that there might be some loyalty. But all they offered was exile. The conference decided that the League was a failed state. Most of the worlds still free were forced to surrender to Eleison. Others were handed over to the Archon, the Chancellor - even ComStar's pet protectorate - as bribes to have them consent to the partitioning."

.o0o.

**Steinhof, Vienna**

**Terra**

**18 July 3025**

Despite the tale of calamity that had befallen everything he cared about, Janos couldn't help but feel his mood brighten as the doors to the hospital opened and he felt the breeze against his face.

There was, he found, something about Terra - something about the gravity, the air or something else - that told him that he was home. That this world, like no other, was suited to humanity.

Janos couldn't walk yet - four years in a bed had left his legs weak despite everything medical science could do. Still, if Therese had managed to lose every world and every soldier that he had once commanded - oh be fair, he reminded himself. Thomas has a fair portion of that blame, and some must be mine - she had at least managed to salvage enough money to engage security and servants.

Proper security, worthy of a Duke if not of a House Lord. There were 'Mechs standing outside, ready to escort the limousine waiting for him, and strong young men like the one pushing Janos' wheelchair.

As the wheelchair reached the top of the ramp down from the front door, there was the familiar sound of a sergeant's command and booted heels stamping as their owners came to attention.

Momentarily blinded by the sun it was a moment before Janos recognised the bearded face of the Captain at the head of the guards. He wore the uniform of the Marik Guards but he was not a man that would have ever worn it. At least not in the universe that Janos understood.

Have I gone insane? he wondered as he automatically returned the salute.

"Sir," Cranston Snord said with only the faintest trace of irony as he held the door to the limousine.

"Captain Snord?"

Janos licked his suddenly dry lips. "Just how precisely did you enter my daughter's service?"

The former mercenary's face darkened. "We have an enemy in common."

There was only one name in Therese's tale that had drawn sufficient venom. "Eleison. What did she do to you?"

Snord's eyes were icy. "She murdered my daughter. No warning, no attempt to talk. She just opened fire."

"She has so few enemies that you accepted a commission from my daughter?"

"No. She has many enemies. But to them she is a lesser evil. They look at Kerensky's Clans. They whisper of the Horde that's following them out of the Periphery. And they think that they can use her. That she can be dealt with after she has been bled. None of them see that she is using them exactly like that. She is simply waiting for them to be weakened before she strikes because she doesn't care one shred about 'protecting' anyone."

Janos Marik stared at the man and then nodded, gesturing sharply to his escort to lift him into the back of the car.

He waited until the door was closed and the privacy screen was raised. And then he raised his wrinkled hands and pressed them against his face, slumping back against the soft cushions of the seat. "I'm too old for this shit," he pronounced.

.o0o.

**Schloss Marik**

**Terra**

**27 July 3025**

Janos was under orders to take things easy so he was sitting in a well-padded chair overlooking the orchard, watching his grandsons terrorise the trees much as he and Anton had back when they were that age.

Almost sixty years ago. By the standards of many worlds that wasn't really old - most men his age from Atreus or Marik could look for another thirty or forty years of active life. Men who didn't have politics as a hazard to health that was.

He'd spent most of the morning doing his best to sort out the family's finances. Therese apparently didn't have much of a head for numbers and had been essentially running the entire court in exile on credit. The Marik estate here did make a small amount of money - mostly rents from surrounding farmers - but that was just enough to cover the operating costs.

Paying for a couple of hundred exiled hangers-on, about that many servants and Cranston Snord's thinly-disguised mercenary company was essentially dependent on the banks not realising that the Marik name didn't have the near-limitless wealth of four hundred odd inhabited worlds to back it any more.

Fortunately Janos recalled the details of a few covert accounts that Terra's highly efficient banking system could transfer before the no doubt legions of accountants in the service to Carver, Eleison and everyone else who'd taken apart the League laid hands on it. He'd covered enough of the short-term loans to keep the banks off him, sunk a good portion into what should be stable sources of income (a tenth each earmarked for the education or whatever of the two boys in the orchard).

If Therese decided to ignore his instructions to keep her spending within what she could finesse out of the banks given the income Janos was providing then he certainly wasn't going to bail her out a second time. She'd looked after him during his coma and he'd kept the banks off her. They were quits.

There was a discreet knock on the door and a servant opened it to admit a ordinary looking man with slightly too-long brown hair and a sleepy looking expression that didn't suit the splendidly expensive uniform of a DCMS Warlord.

"Lord Tylor," Janos greeted him, rising to his feet and offering his hand.

Justi Ueki Tylor, who had already begun to bow, stopped awkwardly and accepted the hand. "Lord Marik," he replied with a cheery shake of Janos' hand. The Warlord of Galedon, Deputy of Military Affairs and now 'Khan' of the Smoke Jaguars looked like any other hearty, good fellow mechwarrior - quite unlike the samurai ideal of the Draconis Combine.

"I understand that you're the reason the Free Worlds League isn't being ravaged by these Clans. Thank you for that."

"Oh, they're not so bad once you get to know them," Tylor declared without missing a beat. "Very decent of Cecelia to send me off to visit Marik at such an exciting time."

"...yes."

The younger man leant forwards slightly and continued in a slightly quieter voice. "Between you and me, I think her most inspired Excellency may be a little upset at me."

"Sending you off to the League?"

"Oh nonsense, that's just diplomacy. No, she's been a bit terse recalling me. Wants to know 'what I've been doing on my holidays'. A touch excitable, but a splendid Coordinator I can assure you. You haven't met her, have you."

Janos allowed that no, he hadn't.

"I know, remarkable thing. Kyrie hasn't either and they'd get along like a house on fire I'm sure."

"That would be Kyrie Eleison?" Janos pronounced the name with a slight edge of distaste.

Tylor didn't appear to notice. "That's her. Lovely woman. A bit tall of course, but she and the Coordinator are like two peas in a pod."

"I'm reasonably sure that the Protector of Oriente would make two - or three - of the Coordinator." Through whatever fluke of genetics, the ex-mercenary was a veritable giant while Cecilia Kurita was more conventionally sized.

"Oh, in personality I mean. It's too bad she couldn't visit Luthien. There'd be shouting, screaming, people running away..."

"Because there'd be houses on fire?" guessed Janos.

"Oh probably. Based on her past history, anyway. It'd be terribly exciting."

"I think I can see why Kurita might want to see you back in the Combine." It sounded to Janos as if the Coordinator would probably rather that this particular Warlord make one final visit to her gardens rather than wander around consorting with foreign heads of state. That sort of spontaneous diplomacy could be highly embarrassing.

"I'm sure she just misses me," Tylor said brightly. "Say, I brought some of your wine cellar from Marik - thought you might want it back, and there was some really well aged Sake..."

Janos raised an eyebrow.

"Split a bottle and talk shop? Mechwarrior to mechwarrior."

The old man rubbed the tattoo on his forehead, mark of his loyalty to a state that apparently almost no one even mourned. "Sounds like a plan."

.o0o.

**Schloss Marik**

**Terra**

**9 August 3025**

Janos wasn't sure if having his BatttleMech shipped to him on Terra was a gesture of scorn by Eleison, a gesture of respect or just an oversight when the remaining personal possessions were being cleared out of the Captain-General's palace for shipment to the estate.

For whatever reason, the Rifleman - still in the blue and white colours of the Atrean Hussars - was now in the estate's 'Mech hanger and 'Shorty' Sneed was coming to the end of what Janos had to admit was a rather thorough report on it's condition. "...not too bad for something that's been in storage for ten years. I've worked with much worse."

"Sounds like good news for your plan, Lord Marik," Snord declared. "Which is a totally brilliant plan that will absolutely not go horribly wrong in any way, getting you and anyone with you killed."

Janos paused in thought.

"Lord Marik?"

"Just trying to remember if abuse of sarcasm is a local felony. I think you're safe but you might want to lay off it, just to allay suspicions." He started unbuttoning his shirt. "Now let's see if we can get it in working order before any of the spies in my daughter's retinue realise that this is more than a second-childhood brought on by too much drinking with Warlord Tylor."

Snord rolled his eyes and then passed Janos a cooling vest. "At least put this on. If your grandsons come down here to gawk they might be scarred for life seeing your scrawny chest, Lord Marik."

"I'll keep that in mind." He shrugged on the vest, brushing his long hair back so that it wouldn't be trapped between the collar and his neck. "And get used to calling me something else. If someone slips up and identifies me out there, we won't be able to move for bounty hunters."

"Fine." Snord looked over at the wall, then back at Janos. "Geoff."

"Geoff?"

"From now on," the former - and future - mercenary decided. "You're the Irregular's newest recruit. Geoffrey Fourmyle."

"Some sort of hidden meaning?"

"Why yes. We're all collectors in the Irregulars, this should remind us all of what you're looking for."

Janos - Geoffrey - paused in thought. "Answers," he said at last.

"Answers and revenge," agreed Cranston Snord.

Their hands met, confirming the pact.

**A/N**:

Wondering what happened?

So is Janos!

Actually this is based on a rather high-level BT game where players took over various minor factions. And then things got weird. After four and a half years of game time, Hanse Davion and Katrina Steiner are pretty much the only canonical leaders left.

Yeah, we kinda made a mess. It was... um... well most of the things that went horribly wrong for House Marik _were_ directly or indirectly the fault of my character.


End file.
